


au revoir

by eternally_winding



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1940s, A Black Widow, Angst, Assumed Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky doesn't fall from the train, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, M/M, Minor James "Bucky" Barnes/Pvt. Lorraine, Minor Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Misunderstandings, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Not the one you're thinking of, One (1) self-sacrificing idiot, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Red Room (Marvel), Steve doesn't crash the Valkyrie, Wartime, as in neither one die, post-azzano, so minor it's nonexistent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-29
Updated: 2018-09-29
Packaged: 2019-07-18 21:49:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16127426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternally_winding/pseuds/eternally_winding
Summary: Bucky watches Steve walk away, a visual of those sad eyes of his burned into his mind.They'd be fine. It was fine. They'd been through worse than this; when Anne dumped Bucky right before he shipped out, or when Steve soldiered through his own heartbreak because someone he'd been with for weeks had decided he wasn't it for them.It will be okay, he lies, but the thought is empty and hollow. He knows watching Steve walk away is the hardest thing he'll ever have to do. Because the one common factor through all of those experiences? They'd had each other.Yeah. It'll be fine.A.K.A. the one where Steve doesn't go down with the Valkyrie, Bucky never fell from the train and everything is all screwed up.





	au revoir

"We can't keep doing this, Stevie." Bucky says one night after hunkering down with the Commandos in a refuge base outside France.

They're laying next to each other on Steve's military-issued cot; the one made out of stretched canvas fabric and metal bars that always cause a kink in Bucky's back because the both of them are too big to fit without a good chunk of themselves hanging off. Neither of them seemed to mind before, though. They were there, together, and that's what mattered.

Steve stills next to him, fingers freezing from where they were playing with Bucky's hand. They’re pressed up against each other, legs and shoulders and arms, and Bucky can tell the moment Steve processes his statement, body going tense.

"What do you mean?" Steve's voice is hoarse, uncertain. It pains Bucky to hear, because the only thing Steve is ever uncertain about is him. Never in the field, never when he was Captain America. With Bucky, Steve was vulnerable and raw, laid open and bare. Bucky could hurt him a hundred times over and all Steve would say is, _‘please, thank you’_.

Steve always fell too hard and too fast, poured too much of himself, his heart, into a person. Bucky knew this, he'd seen it happen again and again. Bucky'd been there, a shoulder to cry on and the one to put Steve back together, to tell him _'Life goes on'_ and _'There are more fish in the sea than one dame, Stevie.'_ He'd seen the heartbreak loving someone could do, and he didn't think he could stand to see himself be the cause of the same thing. Steve deserved better, _was_ better.

"This. Us. It's not healthy. We're not- we can't be-"

"Together. Is that what you're saying?" Bucky risks a glance at him. Steve's jaw is set and he's staring hard at the ceiling.

"Yeah." Bucky sighs, shifting his gaze towards the smooth block tiles on the ceiling above them.

 _You deserve better,_ Bucky wants to say. _You deserve someone who you can take out dancing and on dates. You deserve someone who you can build a life with, instead of sneaking moments behind closed doors. You deserve better than a guy who still wakes screaming in the middle of the night, dreaming of Zola and death and war camps._

Bucky doesn't say any of that, because he knows how stubborn Steve is, knows he'd get it into his mind to prove Bucky wrong; to prove to Bucky what they could be. If this was going to work, if Bucky was going to set Steve _free_ , he had to make him angry enough to walk away. Instead, he says, "You're not a dame. I can't love you like one."

The words _hurt_ , burn, fracture something inside him that he's fought so hard to keep under control. _It doesn't matter_ , he thinks. _This is about Steve, not me._

"I know I'm not," Steve snaps, and _there_ , that's the reaction Bucky is looking for. The angrier he gets, the easier it'll be for him to write Bucky off as an asshole masquerading as a good guy, and Steve'll be able to get over him faster.

"What did you expect from me?" Bucky asks, open and honest and aiming for a touch rude. "'M no good with relationships, you know that."

It's true. The entire time Bucky and Steve have been best friends, roommates, Steve had only seen him invest himself in someone once or twice. The rest were casual fun, something to remember but never to write home about.

Steve doesn't know the reason he rarely ever put himself out there was because the person he really wanted was out of reach; so close, but never _his_.

"I thought-" Steve starts, then shuts himself up. Bucky can see the gears turning in his head, the pain and anger taking over. _'I thought I would be different.'_ Bucky finishes, because even though Steve tries to hide himself, Bucky can always read him like a book. "I know."

Bucky forces himself to remain still when Steve sits up so quickly that Bucky nearly falls off the cot. He keeps himself from reaching out, from putting his hand on Steve's shoulder and telling him, _'It'll be okay, life goes on. You'll find someone better than me. Someone who can give you the world.'_ He has no right. He lost that the moment he chose to break Steve Rogers' heart.

_It'll be better in the long run. It might hurt now, but this is good for him. You'll see._

Steve swings his legs over the cot and stays seated, back to Bucky, his muscles bunching with the way he's tensing. "Do I really mean that little to you?" Steve sounds hurt, like he's breaking.

Bucky doesn't respond. Steve turns to look at him, his teeth gritting together so hard it looks painful, blue fire eyes staring into his soul; expression angry and pained.

"Tell me you don't care about me. Look me in my eyes and tell me."

Bucky inhales, slow, at the demand, because it is one. Steve's words are needy and desperate, clinging onto any resemblance of hope he can find.

For a long moment, Bucky can't do it. He can't make himself look his best friend turned lover, turned _love_ , in the eye and tell him he doesn't care about him, because he _does_. Everything he knows is colored by Steve in some way, like a Steve-tinted painting bleeding out into his life. 

But this is what Steve needs to hear, has to hear if he's going to move on. So Bucky steels himself, pours sympathy into his gaze, and looks over at Steve with a soft "I'm sorry."

It’s the biggest lie Bucky’s ever told, but Bucky knows Steve won’t see anything past the pitying look he’s giving him, knows Steve _hates_ that look, ever since he was young. It makes Steve see red, and that’s exactly what Bucky’s banking on so that Steve won’t look further, won’t push to find the truth -- because Bucky knows if he _did_ , he’d see how utterly heartbroken Bucky is, saying these words.

Steve doesn’t stay long after that. Bucky doesn’t blame him.

•••

Bucky doesn’t sleep that night. Sleeplessness is nothing new to him, after Austria, but this feels different. As he lays awake on the too-small cot, staring into the dark, he feels empty, like something is missing. Something distinctly Steve-shaped.

He curls onto his side and uses his right hand as a pillow while the other wraps around his stomach. It takes every ounce of willpower he has not to get up and run to Steve, to fall to his knees and beg him to take him back.

He shuts his eyes and grits his teeth. He _can’t_ beg him to take him back, because Steve _would_. That hurts the most, knowing that if he just explained--

No.

If he does that, he’ll hurt Steve over and over again. As much as it hurts now, as much as it _kills_ him to lie to Steve, to tell him he doesn’t love him when he loves him so much it hurts, he has to. He’ll never be good enough, he’ll never be the person Steve needs to take care of him. He can’t provide him with a life or a family. Steve deserves that and so much more.

Steve will get through this.

And if it breaks Bucky along the way, at least Steve won’t be close enough to notice.


End file.
